Bosnian Coffee | Place Setting

[Virginia Siegel & Senida Husić]

Virginia Siegel: “Tell me about the place setting, or the um how the cups are arranged, you know? Is there a specific way of doing that or?”

Senida Husić: “Uh there, there isn’t really, and it just depends on how traditional you want to be with your coffee presentation. Um, and some people like A- I, I know you know Adisa, and she’s very big about like being very, very traditional and holding on to our roots, so she drinks her coffee from a fildžan, and that’s a coffee saucer. So it’s not like a cup, it doesn’t have the little handle, but it’s a little saucer, um and I’ll actually show you some when we get downstairs. Um, so uh, you know, she’ll have her’s in that, and up until a few years back, my father just wanted to use the fildžan as well, because again like to, to my father, and I’m sure to Adisa too because she’s very, you know, interested in the past traditions, but, you know, to my father like that I’m sure brought back memories of, you know, having coffee with, you know, his brothers and some of his late brothers, and then his late parents. So it just, like it’s, it’s, it’s a very powerful thing if you really think about it, and sometimes, you know, coffee will get us reminiscing about the good and the bad of what’s been and what, you know, what history is somewhat repeating itself in so ways, so it, it, it’s a great conversation starter and it, it’s just, so it really, you know, when it comes to presentation it just depends on you. If you want to be more traditional, if you want to be more modern, like there are all kinds of different coffee cups, um usually so you have your coffee cup or um, if you’re doing the coffee cup then you’ll have a little plate to put the coffee cup in, um and usually what people do with presentation like they’ll put the uh sugar cubes on there. Some people, and again, it’s uh, again kind of a preference, personal preference for each people, but if you go to somebody’s house they won’t even put like the sugar in your coffee or even ask you, they’ll just give you the cubes and then, you know, you can use as much as you want or as little as you’d like, um, so that depends. And then as far as like the, the look of the cup, it can be huge, it can be smaller, it can be more modern, more like dainty, more Victorian-like, or you know, more traditional-like. Or, of course, you can do the little saucers, and with the saucers there’s no, you know, plate to put them on or anything like that, they’re just served like that as little saucers, and they will just go around. And usually the saucers are smaller, although they can also range in different sizes as well. Um, and as far as, you know, there is a uh which is essentially just like um, I know you have uh, um, like a little-”

VS: “Like a tray?”

SH: “-tray, that’s the word I’m, yeah, it’s a tray. And, you know, people, manufacturers and other companies, they get very crafty with how that looks, and the coloring, and the detailing on it, and all of that stuff. So what we’ve got down there, we’ve got two different ones, those are probably the most popular ones that you’ll see, almost in every household there’s the silver one and a different shade, and then now they’ve come out with like more of the copper-ish looking ones, and those are more for like a, if you, if you’re in the mood for a very traditional presentation, um, you know, of course you will use those. And other than that, essentially, you know, you can add sweets, sweets are always a good thing to go with it. Depending on, you know, doesn’t matter if it’s something that you made at home, something that you bought at store, like at a dessert shop, or if you just went to like your grocery store and you bought some like wafer cookies or, you know, whatever the case is, like there usually is something to go with coffee always, always.”